Lone Mothers' Economic Inclusion

Economic inclusion for lone mothers is crucial to addressing child, youth, and family poverty in BC and a central and urgent area of focus for the Centre for Family Equity.

Our recent Justice at Work for Lone Mothers in BC project and first-of-its-kind research report, No Way to Escape: The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Low-Income Lone-Mother Workers in BC were foundational initiatives leading to policy recommendations that would improve the lives of lone mothers and their families.

With renewed support from Women and Gender Equality Canada, the Centre for Family Equity has embarked on a new project: Our Way In: The Justice at Work Pathway to Economic Security for Lone Mothers in BC. This project consists of two years of knowledge mobilization and advocacy led by regional committees of lone mothers with lived experience of the issues we are addressing. The project builds on our research and aims to promote lone-mothers’ economic inclusion through policy change driven by our evidence-based recommendations.

This project is supported by Women and Gender Equality Canada and runs until March 2026.

Our Way In: Policy Solutions

Through our two research projects partnered with UBC combined, we gathered stories and data from over 187 lone mothers across the Province that led to a series of policy recommendations to enable lone mothers' economic inclusion in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Now, we need solutions implemented. It is time for action. And we must act now.

Broadly, we call on the Province of British Columbia to:

remove barriers to labour market access
ensure equitable employment standards
implement measures to strengthen our social safety net; and
ensure at-risk families are not driven further into poverty and risk by any State of Emergency in BC

Mothers With Lived Experience Lead the Way

Our four Regional Impact Committees comprising lone mothers who have lived experience of poverty and economic exclusionare leading advocacy to impact policy change. The project is guided by an Indigenous coordinator who advises all four Regional Impact Committees at a provincial level, Committee members raise public awareness about the Centre for Family Equity's policy recommendations and are dedicated to outreach and engagement with local and provincial stakeholders in their regions. Committee members deliver presentations and attend meetings to present our recommendations.

Please email [email protected] if you are interested in a presentation to your group.

General Policy Priorities

Recognize the different needs of lone-parent single-income families in all policy development and poverty-reduction measures.
Accelerate the building of all forms of affordable housing across the province particularly for families with incomes between $30,000 and $90,000.
Introduce an additional Early Years Success Supplement for all families receiving the BC Family Benefit with children aged five and under.
Make counselling a fully MSP-billable service within BC’s health care system and provide a minimum of 24 hours of counselling per year, per person, for low-income individuals.

Enabling Labour Market Access Priorities

Raise the income and disability rates to the Market Basket Measure and tie the rates to inflation.
Remove the annualized earning exemption (AEE) for those accessing disability assistance.
Annualize the earnings exemption for those accessing income assistance and raise it significantly.
Remove restrictions on access to education and training for parents on income and disability assistance and expand the Single Parents’ Employment Initiative.
Implement an equity-based approach to ensure parents accessing income and disability assistance have priority access to $10-a-day spaces, enabling them to access the labour market.
Transition all interested child care programs to $10-a-day sites to create up to 50,000 fully publicly funded spaces immediately and create a cohesive child-care system in BC that prioritizes the establishment of new $10-a-day ChildCareBC centres in child care deserts.
Establish full province-wide public delivery of before- and after-school care using the public school system to address the province-wide shortage of school-age childcare spaces.

Creating Equitable Employment Standards Priorities

Ensure that employers provide all full- and part-time workers with extended health benefits.
Implement the ABC model as the legal test for determining employee status, reverse the onus of proof so workers are considered employees unless the employer can prove otherwise, and eliminate exemptions and carve-outs to the Employment Standards Act.
Provide an additional five days of employer-paid sick days per year for caregiving responsibilities related to dependents’ and other family members’ sickness and care needs.

State of Emergency Priorities

Designate all intimate-partner and gender-based violence services including transition shelters and legal aid as essential services with guaranteed uninterrupted service.
Create a permanent Provincial State of Emergency Vulnerable Populations Task Force with a mandate to address the needs of low-income and marginalized children, youth, and families.

Our research

In March 2024, we released a first-of-its-kind research report, No Way to Escape: The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Low-Income Lone-Mother Workers in BC. This report includes 28 policy recommendations to the provincial and federal governments.

In December 2023, the Centre for Family Equity released A Whole Life: The Impact of $10 a Day Child Care on the Health and Socioeconomic Well-being of Low-Income Lone Mothers in BC with a suite of 10 recommendations to the provincial and federal governments.

Funder

This project has been supported through Women and Gender Equality Canada's Women's Program.